[psurelia]

Dear BHPians,

We are the nomadic lot of the nation who often venture into areas of no cellphone signals and into places where there is no one to ask for direction. Paper maps? Who cares for them these days? They are big and messy. Most importantly, they don't have a search function and no POIs (Points of Interest) . So, here we are searching for the best offline navigation apps.

I have shortlisted a few of the apps. There could be some worthy contenders that I may have missed. Please feel free to mention them in your comments which will be helpful to the community members and guests reading/following this thread.

Contenders

• GPS Navigation & Maps Sygic
• Here Maps/Drive by Nokia
• Google Maps
• Navmii GPS World (Navfree)
• MapFactor
• OsmAnd Maps & Navigation
• NaviMaps: GPS Navigation by MapMyIndia
• Offline maps & Navigation by Navigation.

Special Category Contenders - Off Road Navigation

• Oruxmaps
• Androzic

Following are the key attributes which you may want to score on for ranking the apps. You can also suggest additional attributes to help fellow BHPians come up with their favourite.

Please note that "offline navigation" is a must have feature for any app to be proposed in this thread.

Scoring Attributes

1. Area Coverage
2. Details & accuracy of map data
3. Ease of use
4. Availability & clarity of voice navigation
5. Ease of maps data update
6. Storage optimization - Area-wise selective downloads & removal of maps data as needed
7. How updated the maps data is, i.e. how often map data updates are released
8. POI coverage
9. Rerouting speed
10. Quality of Display / UI
11. Cost of ownership - price of the app and / or maps data
12. OS Coverage - iOS, Android, Windows Phone, BlackBerry

Please limit the number of your votes to a maximum of 3 so that the probability of a polarized result is higher and hopefully we will be able to pick a clear winner. It will be helpful if you can explain a little bit on how and why you picked your favourites.

Now go and download the apps you like, play around with them, compare them, score them and pick your winner! Let's target end of May 2015 to come up with a winner.

[Rehaan]

Updated poll added & thread moved out from the Assembly Line.

Here's a post from the earlier thread:

Originally Posted by rajdeeppaul1995

Hey psurelia

I stay in Delhi and mostly use Navigation when searching for places to dine-in for dates or with family, I rarely trust them blindly, have been stranded quite a few times in the past
I've used almost every contender on the list there except "MapDroyd", according to me the best contender on this list is, without any second thoughts: Google Maps

Scores based on my evaluation:
1. Area Coverage - 9/10
2. Details and accuracy - 7.5/10
3. Ease of use - 10/10 (Google voice helps a lot, in a handsfree car)
4. Availability & clarity - 8/10 (Indian voice does help but still doesn't get the names right sometimes)
5. Ease of maps data update - 6/10 (Eats a ton of data!)
6. Storage - 8/10
7. Updation - No clue
8. POI Coverage - 9/10 (Very accurate but there still are some wrong inputs)
9. Rerouting speed - 5/10 (Good on 3G, Bad on 2G)
10. Quality of Display - 8/10
11. Cost - Free all the way!
12. OS Coverage - Not so good on iOS, being a product of Google, it obviously works flawlessly with Android ( I use it on Lollipop)

P.S - I use a Nexus 4 with Lollipop 5.1.

Cheers!
Paul

[GTO]

Not that I've used the others, but NaviMaps (MapmyIndia) worked like a charm for me the last time I needed it. I have a Reliance CDMA connection; very good in the city, patchy outside of (especially high speed data). NaviMaps performed just as expected.

I believe Google Maps now allows you to download maps, although it keeps them on your phone only for a month or something.

[aks_karthik]

I have been using NaviMaps (iOS) since 6 months and almost covered all of south india by using it and never felt any discomfort on the routes, reroutes, routes planning. But searching places is sometimes cumbersome due to right spelling.

GPS fixation and clear indications of flyovers.

Really a wonderful product for the money shelled out

[naikameya]

I vote for HERE maps. in the pre android era of phones i have used Nokia maps which never required internet and worked like a charm in interiors of Maharashtra. Recently I used them on roadtrip Banglore to Coorg and it worked well.

Google maps though stored on phone one can't start turn by turn navigation unless you have internet connectivity..but i am not sure. Here HERE maps work well.

[anoop_lamba]

I have been using NaviMaps and it was a life saver during our ladakh trip.
Do not have much experience with others except for online usage of google maps.

[ckranjan]

Originally Posted by naikameya

Google maps though stored on phone one can't start turn by turn navigation unless you have internet connectivity..but i am not sure. Here HERE maps work well.

Here maps is very good for offline navigation. Better than some paid apps even. Google maps does not have offline navigation capability. You can download maps but you cant use it for navigation or POIs or anything else for that matter so its pretty useless.

[john.gt]

HERE maps does have a good coverage for India. I had been part of them few years back and they do pretty detailed testing on various Indian roads, with all three modes, Car, Public transport and Walk.
More over it is free. Their routing algorithm used to be good, not sure now.
With respect to real-time information, I believe GM wins hands down. Google has led me down non-existent streets a couple of times.

[JKDS]

I've been using several maps software atleast since 2010, and that includes Google Maps, Sygic, Bing, OSMAnd, and several other paid and free ones not featured here, when I was using the BlackBerry PlayBook.

Although Google Maps are no doubt good online (barring the few instances where it leads straight into a pond, showing a road through it! Mostly in rural areas), offline maps of Google Maps are restricted to a smaller area.

I started using a full version of Sygic, but both POIs in Kolkata and Bengal and Road names were not exhaustive to cover the entire span. Also, the lesser said about the alternatives for the BlackBerry PlayBook the better.

Then I was informed of the MapMyIndia NaviMaps. The first 7-Day Trial made me fall in love with it, especially the coverage and the details available. Also, Rs.599/- for India Navigation and Rs.499/- for Nepal navigation, it's a steal! Hooked onto it since; using it for two months now, both in-city and highway, and loving every moment of it! :-)

The best part of it is that it is offline, so the initial installation may take about a GB or so of maps data to be downloaded, but that's more or less it. Waiting to experience it in remote places, like forests, villages and hill stations.

[adnaps]

Having used Here, Mapmyindia, Sygic, Tomtom & Google my order of recommendation are as follows :

1. Here Maps
2. Mapmyindia.
3. Tomtom
4. Google
Note :

1. Google by far is the most detailed and accurate one, but considering the need for net connectivity is a dead duck in areas outside 3g coverage.
2. Here Maps and Mapmyindia maps are very close in accuracy and coverage and it is difficult to rate one higher than the other. Of course the fact that Here comes free and mapmyindia is paid for may swing the decision in favour of Here maps.

[DriveTrain]

I use something called Locus Maps , it is an App available from Google Play Store. It lets you use a wide array of maps from several different sources including Google Maps and the best part is the ability to cache and store offline maps from all of these different map sources. You can upload your own maps as well. It has extensive geocaching and track recording functions and the interface offers a lot of customizations according to your choice.

I use MapMyIndia [MMI] and Google Maps offline and online extensively. If a PoI is not shown in MMI, but available in Google Maps, I take the co-ordinates from the latter, plant them in the former and get the actual location. I do this in both offline for planning purpose and online MMI maps for actually navigating to that place.

[RGK]

I use HERE Maps. It works well in offline mode, but one has to update regularly for improved accuracy. Voice navigation is available in regional languages. I downloaded Tamil and used in Houston, USA (last November). It was excellent and everyone in the car was excited to hear the voice in Tamil.

[mvadg]

I have switched to HERE and Navimaps (MMI).

Google Maps is good for the desktop with a (fast) data connection.

OSM requires user participation to create better information (POI) and this is where it seems to come up short (for India).

Locus can download most online maps but note that this download includes very few POIs.

All maps are pretty good now, but it is the POI database that matters - this is where Google Maps (online, desktop) excels. Navimaps and HERE are reasonably good in this respect. Watch out for outdated entries in Google Maps, but this has more to do with businesses not informing Google they have moved. I don't know what happened to the Google StreetView cars after the police in Bangalore banned it.

I dont trust any of them to give me correct directions, especially through one ways. None of them (even online) had updated their maps to show the new one-ways near Madiwala / Hosur Rd. junction. Google Maps will route you through a lane divider at times.

[bigwheelz]

Google maps works the best for me. Rerouting in cities due to traffic is the biggest benefit of Google maps.
Navimaps has led me to non-existent roads couple of times outside cities. While going to Goa after Belgaum it put me on to a road which led me to tribal zone with big stones for the road. I now take waypoints from google maps and enter in navimaps to stay on course.
Used Nokia maps 4-5 years ago, Got me in trouble in smaller cities.
With so many goodreviews, will now try HERE maps